A Veterans Day story that drives home what our heroes have done...
Navy confirms finding sunken U.S. warship known as ‘the dancing mouse’
The wreck of the USS Edsall, a lone American destroyer that fought a Japanese fleet, has been found in the Indian Ocean, the U.S. Navy says.
On March 1, 1942, three months after Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, the aged American destroyer USS Edsall was steaming alone in the Indian Ocean south of Java, loaded with 153 sailors and several dozen Army Air Forces pilots and soldiers.
The Edsall was a small ship, only about 300 feet long. It had been damaged in an earlier depth charge accident and was unfit for combat. But it was probably hurrying to the aid of a ship in distress when it blundered into a huge Japanese naval force around 4 p.m.
For more than an hour, the Edsall dodged and swerved as enemy ships fired hundreds of shells. The Edsall fired back, threw up a smokescreen and launched torpedoes. The Japanese later called the Edsall “the dancing mouse.”

An image from a Japanese propaganda film shows the Edsall’s final moments in the Indian Ocean.
Naval History and Heritage Command
Finally, the Japanese sent in dive bombers, and the battered destroyer rolled over and sank as evening fell. A few survivors were picked up and later beheaded in an enemy prison camp, historians found.
On Monday in Australia, when the country observes Remembrance Day, U.S. and Australian officials announced that the wreck of the Edsall has been discovered.
“We will now be able to preserve this important memorial and hope that the families of the heroes who died there will know their loved ones rest in peace,” Caroline Kennedy, the U.S. ambassador to Australia, said in a video statement posted on social media.
The wreck was found late last year in 18,000 feet of water south of Australia’s remote Christmas Island, the U.S. Navy said. Australian and U.S. officials worked together to confirm it was the Edsall.
“It is pretty incredible,” said retired U.S. Navy Rear Adm. Samuel J. Cox, head of the Naval History and Heritage Command in Washington. “And because there were no surviving American witnesses, there’s no Medals of Honor, no Navy Crosses, nothing for any of these guys.”